
Freedom Writer - March 1996

ACTIVIST GUIDE
Five tips for social action

_Mel_White_is_the_national_minister_of_justice_for_
the_Universal_Fellowship_of_Metropolitan_Community_
Churches,_the_only_Christian_denomination_with_a_primary_
outreach_to_gays_and_lesbians._For_30_years,_Dr._White_
served_the_evangelical_Christian_community_as_a_pastor,_
seminary_professor,_best-selling_author,_prize-winning_
filmmaker,_communications_consultant,_and_ghostwriter_
to_some_of_its_most_famous_and_powerful_leaders,_including_
Billy_Graham,_Jerry_Falwell,_Dr._James_Kennedy,_Ollie_
North,_and_Pat_Robertson._In_1993_he_was_installed_
as_dean_of_the_Cathedral_of_Hope_Metropolitan_Community_
Church_in_Dallas,_Texas._With_14,000_congregants,_it_
is_the_nation's_largest_gay_and_lesbian_congregation._
Dr._White_is_the_author_of__Stranger_at_the_Gate:_To_
Be_Gay_and_Christian_in_America_.

Dr. White delivered the closing address at the "Spotlight 
on the Right Conference," sponsored by the Institute 
for the Study of the Religious Right and the MultiCultural 
Collaborative held at Holman United Methodist Church 
in Los Angeles on November 21, 1995. These five tips 
for social action are excerpted from his remarks._

_
Never be silent or inactive in the face of injustice. 
Never.

Secondly, a belief that the Creator, Allah, God, your 
higher power, the highest power is, at its heart, at 
her heart, at his heart, pro-justice. When you are 
doing something for justice, to make things fair for 
God's little ones, you are on the side of the universe! 
You have to believe that. Ghandi was not a Christian. 
He said, "I might have become one, but I never met 
one." Whether you are reading the Buddhists or the 
Hindus or the Christians or the Jews, at the heart 
of their understanding is that the Creator is  at 
the heart  pro-justice. 

Jeremiah says, "Justice is where God sits." Micah says, 
"Justice is the place God lives." When you do justice, 
something happens to transform your life. Ghandi says 
he started out working to get the British out of India. 
But then he realized that what was happening to the 
people who got the idea, was that the captivity was 
getting out of them, whether the British left or not. 
Once you discover Soul Force, no one can keep you in 
chains.

The third rule is, we have an amazing ability to change. 
Our adversary has an amazing resilience to change for 
the good. You should read the correspondence of when 
Martin Luther King Jr. came out saying that Governor 
Wallace could become an integrationist. He got dumped 
on. And when I was in jail in Virginia Beach, Gary 
got me a newspaper photo of Mr. Wallace sitting at 
the bridge at Birmingham saying, "I was wrong." And 
King, from wherever his eternal soul rests, says, "I 
told you so."

The fourth rule is that the only thing we have to counteract 
misinformation is truth. Truth and love, relentlessly.

Fifth, don't confuse the adversary with the adversary's 
ideas. Separate the person from the idea. "They are 
victims of misinformation just like you were, Mel!" 
Pat Robertson has simply not caught on yet. He will 
catch on. He's a victim of misinformation. See him 
as that.
_

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